


Surrounded By Enemies

by theBitchTornado



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Clean but Mature, F/M, Fairy Tale Style, Final Battle, Life Debt, Plots, Romance, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:08:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23252218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theBitchTornado/pseuds/theBitchTornado
Summary: Once upon a time lived a miko and daiyoukai in two separate worlds. Both were considered outcasts in their respective societies for the people surrounding them didn’t understand them.
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/InuYasha, Higurashi Kagome/Sesshoumaru
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55





	Surrounded By Enemies

Once upon a time lived a miko and daiyoukai in two separate worlds. Both were considered outcasts in their respective societies for the people surrounding them didn’t understand them. The daiyoukai was the most powerful one of all and had no love for anyone except a tiny human girl and his father’s memory. Even his kingdom was a burden to him and all he wanted to do was to set himself free from the responsibility and wander the countryside with his small human companion. The miko, on the other hand, loved many people and tried to help as many as she could. Many of those around her took advantage of her innocence and sneered at her behind her back. Where she was from, she was the only miko, and thus the many spiritual duties required by the Kami that she performed were ridiculed and misunderstood by her people. While she counted many as her friends, very few considered her the same.   
  
On the day she became a woman, she stumbled upon a well and was forcefully taken to another world by a centipede demon who hungered after the power the young woman had just under her flesh: a jewel made out of four warring souls that could take the most low-level youkai into a daiyoukai. The miko knew nothing of this jewel and could barely defend herself. The centipede demon ripped her apart and left her for dead, taking the jewel to her master, a spider-hanyou. On the way, it shattered to a thousand pieces, covering the land with its glow.   
  
The miko would have died if it weren’t to the daiyoukai’s human ward. The girl heard screams come from the well clearing and ran in fear of another bandit’s attack, of which she personally knew of, having died from one two years before. She was resurrected by the demon lord and stayed with him since.   
  
The girl saw the miko fall unconscious and tried to stem the flow of blood that poured from the miko’s side. By the time the demon lord arrived at the scene, the miko was safe from immediate death and was simply sleeping. The little girl sat next to the miko, holding the older girl’s hand. The demon took in the young woman.   
  
She was beautiful, with long blue-black hair that was in waves, much different from the other human women that he saw. Her face was heart-shaped, and her lips were plumb and a delicate pink. Her complexion was clear but for a smattering of freckles on her nose. She looked peaceful, even though he knew she was just brutally attacked. Then he saw: she was a miko. His truest enemy, the only human who could truly destroy him.   
  
Seeing that his thoughts were traveling towards simply disposing of the maiden and forgetting that she existed, his young ward begged for the miko’s life, for she was defenseless and without a weapon. The demon lord could never say no to his adoptive daughter, and so complied with her wishes. They made camp that night around the slumbering miko while the demon lord wondered at ways to kill the woman without breaking his promise. He may not have loved, but he had honor and never broke a vow, even when he wished to, like harboring his hanyou half brother and stepping up to be Lord of the West.   
  
The night passed uneventfully and the miko woke up to a dying fire in an unknown world, with unknown companions. Her eyes were first drawn to the youkai, who was openly staring at her distrustfully. He had long silver hair and startling yellow eyes. His skin was alabaster white, and he had magenta stripes on his cheeks and a blue crescent moon adorned her forehead. His ears were pointed, like the elves in the miko’s world. She had heard of youkai, and oni, but had never seen one in the flesh. The world from whence she came had destroyed all of the youkai and oni, preferring the stories of their fright to the actual creatures.   
  
The demon lord was shocked at the innocence with which she stared at him. He dully noticed that her eyes were as blue as the sea and held no fright in them. He barely noticed the feeling of elation of such a gaze; he did not realize until that moment that being constantly feared and kept at a distance made him lonely. Then he became angry. How dare a human onna not fear him?!  
  
He nearly flew to the woman and scooped her up in his arms and pinned her to a tree.   
  
“Who are you?” he growled out. He noted with satisfaction that she was trembling with fright now, her cheeks reddening. But she never lowered her gaze to him, staring at him.   
  
“My name is Kagome,” she said in a calm voice, though he could hear how hard it was to keep herself that way.   
  
He dropped her, and she yelped out in hurt and fright. “Hn.”   
  
“Hey! Who the heck gave you the right to just drop me?!” her voice barely reaching him. He ignored her and just walked away, seeing that her eyes darkened with anger and pain.   
  
“Silence, onna. Since you were too foolish to defend yourself from that demon, and almost got yourself killed, this Sesshomaru did you a favor by taking you in. You are mine now, and I shall do with you what I wish.”   
  
“’This Sesshomaru’? How pretentious can you get? I’m assuming you’re a lord because I’ve never heard someone who spoke like that in such a self-important way.” He narrowed his eyes. How dare she defy him? He saved her life, therefore she owed him a life-debt and she should have been honored. Then again, he amended, she was a miko, and therefore was only bent on destroying youkai. His ward interrupted before more could be said.   
  
“Sesshomaru-sama is a lord! And this Rin’s protector!” the young girl crowed. Kagome whipped her head in surprise towards Rin, who was obviously traveling with the demon lord, if the kimono she had on was any indication. Kagome amended her opinion of “Sesshomaru-sama” quickly. Clearly, he cared for Rin and that made all the difference in her eyes. She took a deep breath and bowed to him formally.  
  
“I apologize for my hasty words. It is obvious that you two saved my life from that oni, and for that I’m grateful. Now, I must get back to my home.” Sesshomaru started. The woman made a complete change in a matter of seconds and that baffled him. And it made him wonder just how many emotions she could display. So, he quickly blocked her way to the clearing.   
  
“Not so fast, onna. As you said, we saved your pathetic life. And for that, you owe me a life-debt. You will not be going home anytime soon,” he declared. She grew angry again and yelled at him many unsavory things, so much so that he had to send Rin away for a while, just to make sure that Rin never caught the habit of speaking in such a manner. In the end, she was shoved upon the dragon steed he also traveled with and tied together to prevent her escape. While the life-debt was something that she clearly owed to him, there was another reason as to why he wanted her to come with him so badly.   
  
She smelled nice, and there weren’t many humans who did, and so she was to be another pleasant thing to surround himself with. It wasn’t like he cared about her, and she would die after a few decades. She was a curiosity and she would die just as he would figure her out. Nobody seemed to care for the girl, and so her disappearance was of no consequence. Besides, using her as bait to lure his greatest enemy was perfect.   
  
Everyone in this world knew of the jewel, known as the Shikon no Tama, and he saw what the centipede had shattered. One of the pieces had fallen on him and he tucked it away for safekeeping. His enemy had been awaiting the appearance of the bauble for fifty years, and Sesshomaru, reluctantly alongside his half brother, were to find the jewel and guard it against evil. If their greatest enemy found it, there would be no peace in the lands and thousands of youkai would die in the spider-hanyou’s ambitions. This miko would also be a tool, and once she outlived her life-span and usefulness, he would never have another human besides Rin in his presence again.   
  
As his thoughts consumed him, and they headed to his fortress, Kagome attempted to loosen her binds but couldn’t because Rin casually talked her ear off about Sesshomaru. Finally, she stopped struggling and simply listened. For the first time in a long time, she had company that she didn’t have to pretend not to notice the contempt of others. Rin, for all of her hero worship, was a darling child and Kagome found herself charmed. She loved children, and Rin was the dream child that Kagome wished to have someday.   
  
Sesshomaru wasted no time in getting Kagome settled in and trying to figure her out while assigning her the duties that she would have. She met his half brother, named Inuyasha, a name that simply meant “half-dog” because his mother didn’t have the strength of character to truly love her son. She had quickly given him away at birth to escape the shame of birthing a hanyou and named him such to remind him of his halfling status. And so, the hanyou was suspicious of humans as well.   
  
But no matter. Kagome quickly made true friends with him in a matter of days and so the hanyou was also enthralled by the petite miko. Even though the demon lord pretended not to care for Kagome, he was extremely angry that his half brother was always around her.   
  
After a few short months at the fortress, for which scouts were sent all over the land to search out rumors of the shards of the jewel, Sesshomaru set out with Kagome, Inuyasha, his dragon steed, his retainer, a kappa named Jaken, and Rin to find them.   
  
Their travels took them all over the four islands: East, West, North and South, and they gradually gathered the jewel shards and met Naraku, the spider hanyou that had ordered Kagome killed. Sesshomaru detracted from his original plans to use the human miko as bait; he was slowly but surely falling in love with her and wished to protect her. Kagome, unaware of Sesshomaru’s affection, worked herself into heartbreak, for she was falling in love with the daiyoukai as well, and hid her feelings and instead to reciprocate the growing feelings from Inuyasha instead.   
  
He protected her fiercely and saved her life many times and fought over her with a wolf youkai they met one day. The wolf youkai, sensing the power of the jewel in Kagome, vowed to make her his mate and set out to kidnap her and then seduce her into becoming his mate. He in fact was also looking for the shards and invited himself to the traveling group, despite having responsibilities to his tribe, and with no betas or counselors, he would be leaving them to defend themselves. After challenging Sesshomaru and Inuyasha, he lost his jewel shards and his prized Goraishi, an heirloom, and left, never to be seen again.   
  
They met many people, including a monk with a vendetta and a slayer with ambition. They came across a colony of hanyous on Horai Island, all who offered up their services to defeat Naraku. Only the monk and the slayer stayed.   
  
Finally, the shards were mostly gathered up at either Naraku’s end or theirs. Sensing the final battle, Kagome was approached by Inuyasha, in a bid for her hand. Finally realizing that she couldn’t ignore her feelings towards Sesshomaru, she rejected Inuyasha and gathered up the courage to confess to Sesshomaru.   
  
At this point, they’ve traveled for two years and knew each other well. They were close, all of them, and Sesshomaru could honestly say that he cared for all of his companions, but his true love never extended beyond Kagome, his dragon, and Rin. When Inuyasha approached him for permission, for she still was officially paying off a life debt, he thought back to Kagome’s behavior and was heart-broken to find that she seemed to be happiest near Inuyasha and so he reluctantly gave him permission to ask Kagome. The night Inuyasha approached Kagome, he flew away to deal with his pain on his own, visiting an old tree youkai, and hunting, for it was the alpha’s duty to provide food for the upcoming festivities. He was surprised to find that when he descended, the camp was quiet and Inuyasha was nowhere to be found. The slayer and the monk were also away, presumably making love one last time before they gave their lives up to defeat the evil before them. Only a sleeping Rin and a pensive Kagome remained.   
  
Her beautiful face was drawn, and his façade almost cracked, as he dared not to approach her. His will wasn’t as strong as his pride had led him believe, however, and he flew to her and comfort her.   
  
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly, for the night seemed to require it. He awkwardly cradled her, and instead of cuddling like she usually did, she struggled against him and started to cry. He dropped his arms and let her go, his heart crying out.   
  
“What’s wrong?” he desperately asked. He wanted to make amends, for his crimes against her were great and he regretted it. He didn’t regret meeting or falling in love with her, but he regretted that he forced her to stay with him. He opened his mouth but was stopped by a tiny finger to his lips.   
  
“Shhh. It’s nothing that you did. It’s….”  
  
“Then what is it?!” he rumbled. She crumbled to the ground; her head bowed.   
  
“I’m ashamed. Inuyasha came to me and asked me to be his mate, and told me of how much he loves me, and while I should, I can’t love him back. I tried, Sesshomaru, to love him the way he deserves, but I can’t. My heart already belongs to another, and he will never love me the way I love him. And I know that I’m not worthy of him or his love, for I will die, and he will be forever young.”  
His heart caught in his throat. “Whom do you speak of?” he asked, hating the fear and wished he never asked such a question. Kagome laughed without mirth.   
  
“I speak of you, Sesshomaru. I love you, and I know that I can never have you. But for Rin, you despise humans and their weaknesses and mortality. You would never tie yourself to them for the rest of your days. When the battle ends, one way or another, I will leave. I can’t stay and watch you find someone worthy of your affection.” The confession pierced the silence of the night but lightened Sesshomaru’s heart.   
  
He swooped in and kissed her passionately on the mouth. Gathering her up in his arms, he expressed all that he felt in the past two years and after they parted, breathless, he spoke those three words that she had always wanted to hear from him, “I love you.”  
  
They were happy, but not everyone was. There had been another man, a human with no unique or particularly interesting qualities that wanted Kagome for his own. His name was Akitoki Hojou, part of an illustrious noble lineage, but he himself was weak and foolish. He wasn’t a dangerous threat, but he knew one of who was to the miko and daiyoukai pair. So, when the spies he hired came back with the news that Kagome and Sesshomaru were courting and would soon mate, he went himself to find the one creature who was a threat.   
  
Naraku- the greedy spider hanyou.   
  
And Akitoki Hojou made a deal.   
  
Akitoki entered Naraku’s lair, which was dark and covered in filth, with two servants who carried in treasures to appease the evil hanyou. Naraku had been forewarned of Akitoki’s arrival, as the wind witch Kagura and the void demon, Kanna, had told him of Akitoki’s intentions.   
  
So Akitoki was a bit surprised to see the famed Naraku lounging on his cushion when the puny human entered the last chamber of the lair. The spider hanyou wasn’t ugly, Akitoki thought, he had long black hair, not too greasy, and a comely looking face with cruel black eyes. The human found himself a bit intimidated because of the nobility of the villain and the hanyou sensed it and reveled in it.   
“This is what power tastes like,” he thought and smiled so evilly that Akitoki needed to take a step back.   
  
“So, human,” Naraku began slowly, enjoying the taste of power, “why have you come here?”  
  
Akitoki tried to be brave, “I’ve come here for a favor.” And he lifted up his chin as if he wasn’t scared. Naraku’s face stretched wider into a sinister smile.   
  
“And what’s that?” he asked the human, who was now trembling. The human was now offering golden trinkets as tribute and Naraku thought that it was grand thing, to be offered money, but he wanted something more than just gold.  
  
“So, what’s this ‘favor’ you want?” he asked.   
  
“I’ve heard tell that a certain miko by the name of Kagome is a thorn on your side.”   
  
Naraku laughed to himself. A girl...of course. But since it wasn’t any girl, he listened.  
  
“Go on,” he nodded, and patted a second cushion next to him. “Please sit, you must have had such a long journey,” he said, trying to seem benign. Luckily, Akitoki Hojou wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and fell for the trick. So Akitoki sat and explained all about how he coveted the young miko and how she would make him a fine wife.  
  
“And how did you meet this beauty?” Naraku inquired.   
  
“She and that awful daiyoukai protector of hers saved my father from some undead mercenaries,” Akitoki said. “She was so kind to me, and she personally saved my life through my healing. She’s not high born, but she would make a good wife, nonetheless.”   
  
Naraku pretended to think on this and said, “You know miko cannot marry.”   
  
Akitoki swallowed and said, “That’s why I came to you. If her power disappears, then she will not be able to be a miko and that youkai master of hers will drop her. He won’t want some ningen onna be his. I heard tell of your powers, of how you can make others weaker. You take your power and I take the onna. You get rid of your most powerful adversary and I gain a wife. We both gain something- and you gain my tribute.” He waved his hand to his servants and they bowed.   
  
Naraku liked the sound of the proposal and readily agreed to it. He dismissed the puny human and called his servants to him.   
  
It had been two years and he was also sick of the constant battles.  
  
He wanted to end it all- once and for all.   
  
In the meanwhile, Sesshomaru and Kagome began their courtship. It was a light and happy time for both of them, and they began another quest, in which to find out the secret of extending Kagome’s life. He also wished to extend Rin’s, as she was as dear as a daughter to him and he didn’t wish for her life to end before it truly began.   
  
The final battle steadily approached as both sides lost or gained some minor territory. Naraku was a vicious opponent. He would put them under a barrage of smaller and insignificant demons, who would tear and bite at any exposed flesh and then run away like a coward in the next second. It left the group exhausted and the monk almost comatose.   
  
After one such skirmish, they saw a human male walking down the road towards them, and even though Kagome was tired and covered in blood, she straightened up to see a familiar face: Akitoki Hojou.   
  
She waved him over and he gratefully sat down next to her, ignoring Sesshomaru.   
  
“Akitoki-san! How nice it is to see you!” Kagome crowed and both the daiyoukai and the inu hanyou growled in hatred toward this soft man. The man in question however, preened at her attentions and gratefully lavished her with his attention. He flirted with the young woman, insulted her mate-to-be and his brother and then,  
  
“If you are ever in any trouble, Kagome-san, please do not hesitate to come to my manor and you shall be treated as if you were the Empress herself.” She smiled politely and escorted him back on the road, even more exhausted by his attentions. She thought he was a kind but pretentious man and was eager to be rid of him.   
  
The youkai in the group took umbrage in his offer and left the group to make Akitoki was well on his way from where he had come from.   
  
It was nighttime when the final battle came. Everyone but Sesshomaru was sleeping, Kagome tucked up in his arms with a newly minted mating mark on her neck. It had been quiet all day and the monk and the slayer had just trained and hunted. Inuyasha took the chance from the lull to run and scout in the woods, uncomfortable with Kagome and Sesshomaru’s intimacy.   
  
The battle started like any other, with bees flooding the camp and tiring out the monk, who fell in a heap and wouldn’t wake up. The others quickly fell into formation- slayer in the back, Sesshomaru leading the charge, and Kagome and Inuyasha on either side. Ah-Un and Rin took to the skies, to be reunited later.   
  
But it didn’t continue like any other battle-for Naraku came himself to finish his enemies off. When it came to skirmishes, he liked to sit back and watch.   
  
But when it came down to finishing everyone off, he liked to take the credit all on his own.   
  
He liked to play with his food, but not that night. He shot out a tentacle towards the slayer and instantly hit her straight in the chest. She screamed as she went down and then fell silent, forever. The slayer taken care of, he decapitated the unconscious monk to scare the others and then fell back into the trees.   
  
Sesshomaru and Kagome nodded at each other and she grabbed his tail as he started to fly through the trees, chasing the abominable spider. They could hear Inuyasha leaping through the trees trying to catch up to them. Sesshomaru, with supernatural speed and dexterity, fished his Bakusaiga out of its sheath and overtook the hanyou and delivered the first blow.   
  
Kagome, on the other hand, fell back and drew her arrow, aiming at Naraku’s heart- where the rest of the Jewel was housed.   
  
Naraku shot out another tentacle and Sesshomaru cleaved it right off Naraku’s body. Inuyasha fought the smaller demons bravely, using his father’s Fang to clear whole waves of the insignificant bottom feeders. Naraku fought with his tentacles while Sesshomaru parried them away, injuring the spider.   
  
Kagura and Kanna joined the fight, sending waves of wind, cutting the small Miko’s limbs but she shot at them bravely, eventually piercing Kagura’s heart and Kanna’s mirror, shattering them both. Eventually, there were no more villains left but the spider and he was holding his own and tiring them out.   
  
The battle went on for another two days, making Kagome tap into all of her reserves of strength, finding that as the mate of Sesshomaru, she had more to spare. None of them rested, as Kagome created new arrows out of pure energy and slowly wore down the hanyou, who felt his heart purify with each new bolt of purity.   
  
Sesshomaru was injured in the final hour of the second night and couldn’t fight on. He focused one last blast at Naraku, who lost all of the minor demons that guarded his heart and then collapsed. Inuyasha screamed as he saw his older brother fall, seemingly to his death. Kagome, not feeling her mate, turned to him and missed the last blast of demonic energy and was hit.   
  
She heard screaming, and frightened, she used up her last reserves to create one more arrow and only had time to see Naraku disintegrate and catch the other fragment of the Jewel before she too, lost consciousness.   
  
When she awoke, she was back in her old world, inside the well she originally fell into. She had no memory of her adventure, only the Jewel, and she could sense that this was a powerful artifact that needed protection.   
  
So, she took it up as her duty and pretended not to feel some agony whenever she was near the well or have beautiful dreams about a beautiful daiyoukai and a funny inu hanyou. She ignored the nightmares of a man who was also a spider and ignored the longing to be in that fantastical land.   
  
Her new powers gained her respect in her world, as when her so called friends arrived, they noticed a new dignity in her bearing and subtly felt that she was somehow above them now. They treated her kindly, and the poor miko was so unused to it all that she readily forgave all of their transgressions against her, which only gained her more followers.   
  
As time went on, she noticed that she no longer aged. Her friends and followers aged and married and had children who also aged but she stayed young and beautiful. When they all passed on, she began to feel lonely again and long for a love that was as pure as her dreams.   
  
Sesshomaru never forgot his mate. When he awoke, he noticed that he was the only one in the clearing where they had the battle, and as he was a curious being, decided to look around for clues. He found the dead slayer and monk in the camp, and he found his brother unconscious on the forest floor, but otherwise unharmed.   
  
But try as he might, even after searching for a century, even after his beloved Rin was long dead and had long been an old woman, he couldn’t find his beautiful mate anywhere. So, he never forgot her and never even looked at another woman. He learned to live with the pain of their separation, only reaching her in her dreams.   
  
Six hundred years had passed this way and he was in a new world. This new world was dark and dirty and filled with stone and steel and smoke. Most of the populous were mean spirited and cruel. There was barely any magic in this new world, but for one shrine at the corner of the city in which he found himself living in.   
  
One day, he decided to satisfy his curiosity of this magic shrine and climbed the many steps to the top of it. He never aged, so it didn’t bother him. There were many worshippers at this particular shrine, whispering about the legend of the shrine maiden who disappeared for two years and then came back immortal. There, they said, she lived for over a hundred years now, waiting for some magical being to whisk her away to Paradise, away from the human world.   
  
These stories intrigued Sesshomaru, who had never heard of such a legend, but he hoped for some peace...and possibly something more.   
  
He reached the top of the shrine and cut through the crowd to a small building. In it, was a well- a very familiar looking well and that was spouting some very familiar magic.   
  
Could it be...?  
  
He heard the most beautiful voice behind him. Could it be...?  
  
“Sir?” the voice asked. “Can I help you?”  
  
He turned around...  
  
And it was her.   
  
His mate. His beloved.   
  
“Sesshomaru?!”   
  
  



End file.
